Endless Distances
by samurai frasier crane
Summary: This one's for MagnetAndSteel, who is awesome and has given me like ten billion fic ideas. Diane calls Sam while in Europe with Frasier. Set at some point between "The Belles of St. Clete's" and "Rescue Me."


_"Longing, we say, because desire is full_  
_of endless distances."_  
– Robert Hass

Carla held the phone to her ear for less than a second before thrusting it away, as if she had just discovered it to be a bomb. "It's the Stick," she shouted across the room.

Sam stepped towards the bar and took the phone from her, smirking to himself. "Cheers," he said into the receiver.

"Sam?"

An idea occurred to him and he grinned. "Sorry, but who, _may I ask_, is calling?"

"Sam," she said again – no longer a question but a kind of admonishment, or maybe just her saying the name.

"Your name is Sam?" he said. "I thought that was my name. Does this make me Diane?"

"Sam, _shut up_."

In that moment, two things occurred to him simultaneously – that it had to be two or three in the morning wherever she was, and that her voice was shaking. Possibly not the best time to screw with her. "Hey," he said, more gently. "You okay?"

"I'm… Yes."

"What're you doing up? It must be, uh…" He glanced at his watch. "What's the time difference again?"

"It's three," she mumbled.

"Uh, did you want—"

"I just had a dream," she interrupted. "And I couldn't…"

"Oh, okay." He stretched against the bar. "Doctor Freud didn't wanna analyze it for you?"

"Uh, no, I didn't want to wake him. And I knew you'd be up…"

Before he could respond, Carla came up from behind and wrenched the phone from his hand. "We're busy!" she snapped at him. He rolled his eyes and grabbed it back.

"You still there?"

"Was that Carla?"

He heard the faintest trace of amusement in her voice and smiled. "Who else? Hang on, I'm gonna take this in the office."

Carla stomped after him, still scowling. "Sam, we're busy!" she repeated, but he waved her off.

"This'll just take a minute." He locked the door behind him and seated himself at the desk, reaching across for the phone. "All right, I'm here."

"Okay," she murmured – and then just the sound of her breathing.

"Um," he said. "What did you want me to—what'd you dream about?"

A pause, more breathing. "I don't remember," she said finally, without sounding very convincing. This didn't surprise him, since she'd never been one for discussing dreams; indeed, it was one of the few things she actually _didn't_ seem to want to talk about much, even though she had more dreams than anyone he knew. Once she'd tried to convince him that, in fact, everyone dreamt every night – which he didn't buy because he never remembered having dreams, but he thought it could certainly be applied to her. What surprised him was that Frasier had managed to sleep through it.

"I dunno how you didn't wake him up."

"I told you." She sounded a little exasperated, her voice steadier, but he could still detect a hint of unease in her tone; the calmness seemed to him a concentrated effort. "I didn't want to bother him. It's just… just stupid."

"So I'm your go-to guy for stupid stuff?" She laughed faintly and he couldn't keep himself from grinning. "Anyway, I know you didn't want to wake him up. I just meant I'm surprised he could sleep through you flopping around like you do."

"What?" She laughed again. "I don't do that."

"Yeah, right," he snorted. "You've obviously never watched yourself have a dream."

He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth, because implicit in them was the admission that he _had _watched her have dreams – and while at the time this had been perfectly acceptable to do, actually remembering it and telling her about it after the fact was pretty embarrassing. The short silence that ensued seemed to stretch on painfully and indefinitely, but when she spoke again he could find nothing hidden in her words. Whether out of graciousness or discomfort or something else, she was letting it slide.

"Well, if that ever becomes possible I'll have to try it out." She paused again. "And if my recollections are correct, I certainly didn't wake you up more than two or three times."

"No," he said. "_You_ only woke up three times. You woke me up every night!"

"I did not!"

"You did so. I've never seen anyone flop around like you. Well, except for fish."

When he remembered this it occurred to him that she'd actually looked more like a cat or dog than a fish – that very specific way animals have of twitching and rolling all over the place as they sleep. At some point every night she'd inadvertently kick him awake and he'd take a few minutes to watch her go. He did it in part just because she always looked funny – like she was dreaming about chasing rabbits – but also to make sure she wasn't having a nightmare. She had these more often than most people, probably because she had so many dreams in general, and he could figure out what kind it was by how her face looked. She stayed asleep through the good dreams, but the bad ones always woke her up – not in the sense that she was really aware of anything, but her eyes would open and for a second shine with such terrible fear that it even made him uneasy. Then she'd notice him, fix him with a look that combined an almost cognizant gratitude with a strange, animal intensity that he could not begin to understand; and then he would pull her closer and she'd go back to sleep.

"You're making this up," she said. "I don't remember it."

"Of course you don't, you were asleep!"

"Okay," she relented. "But if I 'flopped around' so much, as you so eloquently put it, why didn't you ever say anything?"

"Why would I? I mean, I kind of… Well, it's not like it's something you can control."

"Mmhm. I still think you're making this up."

"I'm—why would I make this up?" He spoke with mock indignation, knowing that she wasn't actually doubting him, even if she really hadn't known. At the time he could never tell, exactly, how much of it she remembered. Even he'd more or less forgotten about it until she brought it back to mind with her call; it seemed to him that neither of them had truly been awake during those nightly interruptions, just not asleep either – rather, at some rare juncture between the two.

"Don't ask me!" she said. "I have no desire to delve into your squalid motivations for anything."

"Uh-huh. We'll leave that to Frasier?"

For a split second this seemed to jar her, but when she spoke again Sam couldn't be sure if he'd imagined it. "It'll take way more than Frasier. We'll need a whole army of psychiatrists for you."

"An army, huh? They'll never get me alive."

"Even better. That way we can take out your brain and give it to anthropologists to study."

"Yeah, maybe they'll figure out what makes me so damn charming."

"Right." She laughed softly, then the laugh eased into a peaceful sigh. "Oh, I knew it was a good idea to call you."

He tried to ignore the welling sensation that had begun in his chest. "Oh yeah?"

"Well, yeah, you're good with… dream stuff."

"Probably 'cos I'm the kind of guy that dreams are made of."

"Of which dreams are made," she corrected, and he let out a snort. "But honestly, Sam, I didn't know I woke you up so often… But the times I do remember, you were so—"

"Handsome?" he supplied.

"Not quite the word I was looking for. How would that have helped?"

"It always helps. Uh, what word were you looking for?"

"Oh." She hesitated. "I was going to say sweet."

He leaned back in his chair, grinning to himself, and thought back to those nights – the few times she'd woken up completely from the dreams, almost in a state of panic. But even then, it hadn't been particularly hard to calm her down. All three times he'd asked her some stupid question – what she'd done that day or what book she was reading or something else he didn't particularly care about – and then she'd launched into one of her crazy monologues, which he listened to like background music while he pulled her against his chest and ran his hands up and down her sides. Ordinarily his lack of attention probably would have offended her, but in those moments – still somewhere between sleep and consciousness – she seemed to find it soothing, and he had a hunch that she wasn't really listening to herself either. Language then was just a sound to ward off thoughts and leave them both empty and unburdened enough to fall back to sleep.

"Well," he said, shrugging. "I try."

"I know you do."

"Uh…"

"How're things at Cheers?" she said quickly.

"Oh." He was still trying to puzzle through what she'd meant, and it took him a minute to process the shift in conversation. "Same as always, I guess. How's _Europe?_"

She chose to ignore the note of scorn he'd injected into the question. "It's lovely. We're in Paris for the weekend."

"Oh yeah? You like Paris."

"I do," she said. "I think you would too."

At this, he felt a prickle of irritation. _Then why couldn't you bring me instead?_ he wanted to demand, but it was a useless question – not just for the logistical reason that the trip had been Frasier's idea, not Diane's, but also because he was sure she'd have answers that he wouldn't want to hear. Still, sometimes he couldn't help suspecting that she was intentionally torturing him.

"Uh, so what'd you two do today? Go to the _Louvre_?" He mispronounced _Louvre_ intentionally, but for once she didn't correct him. He wondered if she knew he was trying to annoy her.

"No," she said. "We mostly just walked around… And we went to the Cimetiere du Montparnasse."

"Whose ass?"

"The Montparnasse Cemetery."

"Oh. I just heard 'ass.'"

"Of course you did."

"A cemetery, huh? See any neat dead guys?"

"We did, actually. Charles Baudelaire, and—"

"All those stiffs. Did they remind you of Frasier?"

"I—oh, shut up."

"I bet that was real romantic. Hey, I had no idea you were into that kind of thing. I wish you'd told me, I have a cop buddy, y'know. We could have gone to the ol' Boston morgue."

"Sam, this is morbid."

"'Course, those guys probably aren't as fancy as the Parisian dead or Frasier, but I bet he coulda gotten us VIP passes."

"Sam, I really don't want to talk about this anymore."

"What, sleeping with Frasier?"

"No," she mumbled. "Death."

"What's the difference?"

"Sam, please," she said – and he realized suddenly that her voice was shaking again and that she wasn't reprimanding him for making jokes at Frasier's expense. This had nothing to do with him or Frasier or anyone but her, and he found himself wondering – as he had so many times in the past – what the hell she dreamt about that got her so spooked. He thought back to the other times he'd calmed her down from nightmares, and wished like hell he could touch her, or even just see her.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I was being an ass, I didn't mean to… Uh, do you want me to g—"

"No," she said. "Please don't. Just, uh, let's talk about something else."

But what else? He discovered that all his thoughts had turned to her – thoughts that couldn't be said even if he'd known how to say them. In fact, cemeteries seemed the best thing to think about in the moment, because at least they kept his mind rooted in a single, harmless place. He tried to imagine the one she'd gone to, see her winding between the graves with Frasier. Jesus – whose idea had that been anyway? "Hey," he said. "Do you think that's why you had the dream?"

"What?"

"The cemetery, y'know, do you think it made you have your dream?"

"What?" she repeated. "Oh, don't be stupid, Sam. You don't know the first thing about dream analysis."

He scowled. "If I'm so stupid, what'd you call me for?"

"Not for dream analysis."

"Well, it's pretty busy here," he said brusquely. "If you want real help, go wake up Frasier."

"Sam, I don't—you are helping."

"Doesn't sound like it. Sounds like I'm just getting you more bent outta shape."

"You're helping," she said firmly. "Honestly, you're better at this than, uh… Well, he would make me talk about… I'd rather not wake him."

"Well." The voice he heard leave his mouth sounded hollow, dull, almost unrecognizable as his own aside from the bitterness. "When you and the doc go off and get married, you'll have to have me on call so he can get his beauty sleep."

"I'm not… I never said I had any intention of…" He could hear her getting flustered and scowled again. "Sam," she said finally. There was something pleading in her voice, as if she was asking him to please understand everything she meant without her having to go through the trouble of putting her meaning into words or even thoughts. He didn't know what she meant or wanted. He just knew that her voice could do unexpected things to him sometimes, infect his mind like a flame and burn away all the irritation and resentment that he'd been keeping there. For a moment he thought he felt real warmth, and then everything was gone except for her.

"Diane," he said. He shut his eyes and listened to her breathe; she seemed so close that he almost felt alarm when he reopened them and found she wasn't there. "Where are you right now?" he asked suddenly. "Describe it."

"Uh…" She seemed taken aback. "I'm in the sitting room of our suite. There's… there's an old desk, and a big window facing out onto Rue—"

"What are you wearing?"

The words sounded as a low murmur and again he heard something foreign in his voice, a calmness that struck him as absurd and completely unprecedented. Somehow he had managed to speak with authority, the question more like a command. He heard her breath catch in her throat and his grip on the phone tightened until his knuckles turned white.

"I'm… I'm…" She stammered for a few seconds longer and then inhaled deeply. "Sam, I don't know if this is appro—"

His grip slackened again and he felt a plummeting in his gut. "Forget it," he snapped.

"Don't be upset. I didn't mean—"

"I don't care what you meant. I'm not upset."

"Sam, I… I mean, uh…"

"_What?_"

"Thank you," she mumbled.

"For…for what?" Jesus, how did she do that? He knew he'd been mad at her a second ago, and now he had no idea why.

"For talking to me tonight. You really helped. I can't even tell you how much."

_I can't even tell you how much_. This phrase reverberated in his ears and he tried to grasp the idea behind it – some indescribable, incalculable quantity. It seemed to him that his entire life had been composed of these: thoughts, distances, burdens, flights, all impossible to traverse or measure. He never knew what to do with such vastness.

"Well, uh, glad to be of help." He glanced at the clock and saw that an hour had passed; it was four now in Paris, and it seemed the conversation should be drawing to a close. "Hey," he blurted. "You wanna hear what happened with Carla and her old headmistress?"

"Oh dear. I hope she didn't get herself into trouble."

"Naw, you won't believe it. I came back to lock the bar and I found 'em playing pool together."

She laughed. "Oh, that's perfect! I know Carla has a heart in there somewhere… Beneath all that wreckage and debris, of course."

"Of course," he said, grinning. "Yeah, they were getting along great, at least until she noticed that Carla had shaved the back of her head."

"She didn't!" Diane let out another delighted laugh, then stopped herself abruptly. "Oh, damn." Her voice had dropped to a whisper. "We woke him up."

"Frasier?"

His question was answered when he heard the distant murmur of a man's voice. He could only make out a few words of Diane's response: "…It's nothing… Couldn't sleep… My mother…Just let me say good night…" She spoke into the receiver again. "Sa—uh, are you still there?"

"Did you tell him I'm your mother?"

"I have to go now, it's quite late in Paris, you know."

"I didn't know I was your mother. I wish you'd told me. I had no idea I had that kind of authority."

"Say hello to Boggs for me," she continued in a mock-cheery voice.

"Don't tell me what to do, young lady. I have half a mind to send you to your room. Naw, here's a better idea – go to my room."

She started to laugh, and he heard her struggling to stifle it. "That's very oedipal," she said. Then, in a more muffled voice: "Frasier, you don't have to wait, I'll be there in a minute."

"Don't forget to send a thank-you note to Grandma for the lingerie."

"That's enough, _Mummy_."

"Okay, okay. Good night, Diane."

"Good night."

He heard the click of her hanging up but kept the phone pressed to his ear for a moment longer. "Sweet dreams," he mumbled into the static. Then he rose to his feet and started slowly back to the bar.


End file.
